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Background Lore
4th December 2099AD... As the lingering flames of the 21st century in the old Earth Calendar began drawing to a close, the question of 'are we alone?' was finally answered. A vast hitherto undetected intergalactic fleet suddenly appeared just beyond the orbit of the moon, and by Christmas Eve had surrounded the Earth. These extraterrestrials - who would become known by humans as the Titans did not come in peace. They had come for what humans themselves have been so guilty of in the past: exploitation of the resources in a new land. For them the goal was the extraction of Earth's resources for their own agenda. To them Humans were merely an annoying species of local wildlife. Overnight the earth was plunged into a conflict it was not ready for. Overnight many of the major world cities - including the capitals of world powers - were wiped out by bombardment from space, beyond the reach of human weapons. Governments and social structures disappeared overnight, Human satellites were jammed, underwater cables connecting continents were targeted and destroyed. The earth had no response able to meet the enemy on equal footing. The earth's latest jet fighters were swatted out of the sky. Nuclear weapons could not hurt them. Earth's mightiest warships were sent to the bottom of the ocean. 30 feet tall humanoid Titan soldiers equipped with heavily armed mechanised power suits would descend upon the Earth, and accompanied by their war machines. In only a short matter of time after they first appeared the Titans established complete military supremacy over humans. Despite their huge setback and disadvantages though, mankind did what it always does when backed into a corner: faced with the very real threat of extinction, mankind adapted and desperately kept on fighting. In response to such a dangerous threat, humans adopted geurilla tactics. They hid underground as much as they could, fought back wherever they could by hitting and running, and reverse engineered whatever technology they could capture from whatever small victories they could get. At the very least humans reached a point where they could defend themselves and inflict casualties upon the Titans, even if beating them was never ever within sight. Humans spent the next two decades fighting a increasingly hopeless conflict, and steadily lost ground against a vastly superior foe. During that time giant Titan machines would bore through the earth taking in Earth's mineral resources and transporting them to their galactic fleet. There are also stories that the Titans would capture humans too and transport them back to their motherships in space, though for what ends nobody knows. Morbid and popular legend had it that humans were being captured to be domesticated, bred, and farmed for consumption like poultry. Some say that Humans were being turned into pets. Then, as the exhausted humans were close to breaking point, just as suddenly as they appeared, the Titans simply left. 24th December 2119AD... With humans seemingly without hope and on the verge of collapse, the Titans simply ascended back up to the cold blackness of space from whence they came. Perhaps they had finished their goal on the planet. Nobody will ever know, but what the survivors of earth did understand was that exactly 20 years to the day they appeared humanity were delivered from destruction. By sheer determination and a large dose of luck humanity had weathered the storm of alien invasion. Taking this chance offered by this deliverance, the remaining humans of Earth began to try and rebuild their lives. But it was not that simple. The Titans had left their mark after 20 years on Earth. 90% of the 2099AD human population were estimated to be dead or missing. Entire ethnic groups had been wiped out, and all the nations of 2099 Earth no longer existed as political entities. nationality meant nothing anymore without nations. An entire generation of children had grown up knowing nothing but conflict between Titans and Humans, in an environment where nationality did not matter in the fight against a common foe. In this political vacuum new factions would rise to take people under their banner with promises of a new beginning and new dreams. Some claimed vestiges of old regimes, some would painted themselves as completely new nations embracing new philosophies. Other problems were that the Titan's resource extraction had left the earth with little remaining. The planet's delicate environment had also been wrecked and had become heavily polluted. A thick smog permanently hung in the sky, blotting out the sun, ushering in an ice age, and stunting plant growth. Many areas of the Earth were radioactive as a result from fallout from nuclear weapons and destroyed nuclear power plants. Many areas were covered by the debris of war and hazardous untreated waste and chemicals. Once prosperous cities lay in ruins derelict and abandoned. 90% of the wildlife were estimated to be extinct. It became increasingly clear to the survivors that the Earth was degrading faster than humans could fix it. There was no doubt that life would recover on Earth in the far future, as it had done in the past after much worse extinction level events. But as the planet became ever more inhospitable to them, it was obvious that mankind would not be part of that long term future. Humanity's time on Earth was ending. In an effort to save the human race, the greatest minds left alive at the time put all their efforts into gathering and reverse engineering all the Titan technology left behind. Their goal was to discover the secret of intergalactic travel. And through their genius mankind discovered the secrets of primitive warp drive, and with it the basic ability to unlock the stars. Summoning every ounce of strength and resource that humanity had left - though battered, bruised, and weak - the factions who could manage it built great space colony ships. They came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and within those holds filled with millions of cryostasis tubes, the best of humanity would be selected to go forth into space to colonise a new home. Alas not all would be able to go. Some were chosen for their skills, some for their strength, some by luck. Each colonist would take with them the dreams of those who would be left behind in a last throw of the dice to save mankind. At last in the year 2130AD the first colony ship took off and entered warp drive to head towards a world which will hopefully would be a new home. Across a 5 year period colony ships would launch and take with them the hopes of mankind across the Orion Spur area of the Milky Way. ...and so mankind set off into the cold expanses of space in a deep sleep... 1st January 250AC... It has been 250 years after the new AC (After Colony) calendar was set up - roughly 550 years after leaving Earth - to mark a new era after the first successful landing of an human colonisation ship. 250AC has marked a breakthrough year as the various post-earth colonial nations have now advanced enough now that the first commercial interstellar flight between two human colony planets has taken place. Public interstellar transportation has now reached a practical level where travel time of consists of only weeks, allowing trade, communication and travel between the new age human powers. All around, new designs for commercial liners, cargo freighters, are entering production to take advantage of this. In the military, new warship designs taking advantage of this are already being mass produced. It has taken a long time to reach that point, but after 250 years, and several generations the descendants of those desperate colonists from Earth have settled new homes. Starting with literally nothing other than what they had brought with them on those great colony vessels and their ingenuity they started from scratch and built a new future. Every home, every maglev rail, every farm, every power station and so forth stand by the efforts of those first settlers who picked up a spade, a saw, or a hammer. But within the two and a half centuries that it took for the human colonists to gain mastery of their new planets, it wasn't just infrastructure which was built. With the fresh start offered to them came the chance to build completely new societies with new cultural norms free of the established status quo which existed on Earth. As the human populations have boomed on their planets from a couple of million settlers to hundreds of millions, new generations of children have grown up accepting new practices, ideas, and philosophies. These new space age humans have no living memories of Earth and view that period only through the lens of history book. And having built new new cultures and new identities now they set forth beyond their home planet to build a new future among the stars. But it is not only mankind setting forth into the stars to carve their place at the dawn of this space age. Extraterrestrial beings from established planets and empires also look on with interest and are planning their own move across the Orion Spur. How will it all fare? Will nations walk the path of cooperation? Or will nations decide to bend others to their ideals and goals?